Premium, organic coffee goes for export
Nury’s days of going without her morning shot could end if Holguín’s Reynerio Almaguer Paz coffee roaster lives up to its managers’ promise.
HAVANA TIMES – A stain on the wall reminds Nury that not only does rationed coffee taste worse and worse but it can be dangerous too. “They’ve added so many things to it that it clogged* the coffee pot while it was brewing. Luckily, I was in another room at the time,” she says. Despite the risks, this 57-year-old Holguín resident misses the coffee, which local stores have not been able to carry for months.
Nury’s days of going without her morning shot could end if Holguín’s Reynerio Almaguer Paz coffee roaster lives up to its managers’ promise. This week, company director Rider Juan Sanchez Hijuelos told state media that the factory was able to resume production after it received a delivery of raw materials. He added that its ¡Hola!-brand coffee mixed with peas would not only be in Holguín by October 25 but in Granma and Las Tunas as well.
“And what about the coffee we were supposed to get months ago? Why haven’t we gotten any since June?” asks Nury. Sanchez Hijuelos has made it clear that, to his regret, back orders will not be filled because the shortage of raw materials does not allow it. Residents in the east of the country, where the coffee shortage is most acute, have had to get it on the illicit market or make do with infusions of one sort or another.
“Orange leaves, lemongrass, wild oregano — for months we’ve been brewing everything except coffee,” says Nury. Those with family members overseas have rediscovered the joys of coffee unadulterated by roasted peas, a common additive on the island. “The other day I was at a neighbor’s house and she offered me a little cup of La Llave [from the United States]. I almost licked the bottom of the cup because I had forgotten just how good coffee could taste,” says the Holguin native.
Difficulty importing peas has been one of the reasons production o
